Cat Who Went Up the Creek

Qwilleran pedaled east on Gully Road with farmland on his left and the Black Forest on his right, and he thought about Fanny Klingenschoen. While pursuing a lucrative career on the fast track—elsewhere—she had bought up half of Moose County. She acquired woodland and abandoned mining villages as well as property in downtown Pickax. Ecologically, she was doing something right, but she was doing it for her own reason: revenge against the “respectable” families who had scorned her freewheeling ancestors. Now the wilderness holdings had been placed in conservancy by the Klingenschoen Foundation—to prevent development and do some small part in saving the planet.

In the wrong hands, Qwilleran was aware, millions of trees would have been cleared to make way for high-density condominiums, a golf course, and even an auto raceway. The pure air and water of the north country would have been exchanged for population growth and pollution. He had been reading about trees and oxygen and rain.

The K Fund had established three conservancies, each with its own agenda. The largest, called the Black Forest, was dedicated to the preservation of wildlife, and Qwilleran wanted to gain some idea of its character before discussing it with the attorney.

After a mile or so on Gully Road there came a break in the dense wall of evergreens, hardwoods and other growth. A sign—obviously new but made to look old—announced BLACK FOREST CONSERVANCY—WILDLIFE REFUGE.

There was an entryway of sorts, wide enough for a motor vehicle but hardly more than a beaten path into the woods: weeds, ruts, stones, tree roots, and forest debris. It had no name, only a county number on a leaning pole—with a warning: DEAD END. Qwilleran was curious enough, and his trail bike was sturdy enough, to give it a try.

Actually it appeared to dead-end fifty yards ahead at a lofty outcropping of rock, the kind of souvenir deposited by prehistoric glaciers.

Standing on the pedals and gripping the handlebars with determination he headed for the rock, only to find that County 1124 went around it, turning left, then turning right around the east end of the rock, then turning right again into . . .

“What the devil!” Qwilleran yelped as he came face-to-face, or rather face-to-tail, with a large truck! It had a Wisconsin tag. It looked like an interstate moving van.

He walked his bike around it. The name painted on the side of the van was DIAMOND MOVING AND STORAGE. The cab window was open, and the driver was talking on a cell phone.

“Having trouble? Are you lost?” Qwilleran asked helpfully.

The man dropped the phone when he saw the yellow bubble-head with goggle eyes and enough facial hair for an old English sheepdog. “Uhh . . . Takin’ a break. Been drivin’ all night.”

“How far have you come?”

“Milwaukee . . . Where’s a place to eat?”

“At the gas station in Black Creek. But you can’t turn around, and you’ll never back out with this rig.”

“I done it before.”

“Well . . . good luck!”

Qwilleran hopped on his bike and punished the pedals some more, meanwhile thinking he had insulted a professional teamster. He remembered working at a metropolitan newspaper and being fascinated by the flatbed trucks that delivered the giant rolls of newsprint. To back up to the pressroom’s loading dock, the driver had to double-jackknife backward—from a busy street to a narrow alley to a narrower dock.

He continued to follow 1124 on its eccentric course around more outcroppings of rock, clumps of trees, evil-looking bogs, and one ancient tree with a trunk at least five feet in diameter. At one point a tree had fallen across the road, and he had to lift his bike over it.

He saw no wildlife larger than a squirrel but heard crackling in the underbrush and rustling in branches overhead. And he could hear the sounds of distant civilization: an emergency siren, shots from a rabbit-hunter’s gun, a chain saw turning a tree into firewood, a hammer turning cedar boards into a deck.

At intervals, trails led into the depths of the forest, disappearing into a mysterious darkness suitable for fairy tales about wolves and wicked witches.

When 1124 dead-ended at the creek, Qwilleran had had enough, and he returned to the reality of Gully Road. The moving van had gone, and—he remembered later—there was no fallen tree crossing 1124.

Before the attorney arrived, there was time to shower, give the Siamese their noontime entitlement, and open a bottle of red wine, to breathe. Barter always looked lawyerly, even in jeans, polo shirt, baseball cap and sneakers. He walked into the cabin with authority and appraised the ingenious space-savers and built-ins. “Snug!” was his verdict.

Pompously Qwilleran said, “Think not of it as a small dwelling; think of it as a large boat.”

“Where are the cats?”

“Out on deck. If you’ll join them and pour yourself a glass of wine, I’ll phone the inn to start our sandwiches.”

Koko ignored the visitor, but Yum Yum could smell a shoelace at fifty paces and approached stealthily.